Iraqi Government Responds Violently to Mass Protests
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi released a reform plan in an attempt to appease protesters. (Wikimedia Commons)
Iraqi people have been protesting unemployment and corruption since October 1. The protests, which are mainly concentrated in Baghdad and Southern Iraq, have been dangerous. Security forces have killed 110 people and wounded 6,000 protesters as of October 8.
In June 2018, World Bank wrote a primer titled “Jobs in Iraq” in which they concluded that “Iraq is facing a jobs crisis of unprecedented proportions.” Not only is the national unemployment rate 16 percent, but the youth unemployment rate is 36 percent. The primer also states that by 2030, “the number of Iraqis in need of new jobs is projected to range between five and seven million.”
The Iraqi youth, who are driving the protests, are motivated by this dire economic situation. “The median age of the protesters … is about 20 years old,” said Imran Khan, a Senior Correspondent for Al-Jazeera, in an interview with NPR. The young protesters have used knowledge of technology to their advantage, with Khan also stating that after a simple social media message, “There were thousands of people in the square … The government was completely surprised by this.”
The demonstrations are not just due to unemployment—Iraqis are also frustrated with government corruption. Iraq has a rating of 18 on Transparency International’s 0-100 corruption scale, with 0 meaning “very corrupt.” Transparency International also ranks Iraq as the 12th most corrupt nation in the world. “It has been estimated that between 2006 and 2014, $500 billion of oil sales receipts and foreign aid disappeared through some of the most massive corruption in history,” writes Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan.
The Iraqi Government has responded to the protests with violence. According to Khan, they “sent in the Iraqi army and the police with very heavy-handed tactics. They used live fire. They used tear gas. They used rubber-coated steel bullets.” The Iraqi military attempted to justify their actions by saying that a member of their Interior Ministry force was killed by attackers in Sadr City. In a particularly harrowing story, a protester from Baghdad spoke out against the police violence, saying, “There was a person who was hit by the sniper. Five people ran towards him to help and they were all shot one after the other. There were bodies all along the street. They all had shots in the head and chest.” Additionally, due to the protesters’ effective use of social media to mobilize, the government shut down internet access in most of Iraq. According to Netblocks, an internet access watchdog, the blackout has affected nearly 75 percent of Iraq’s internet.
The Iraqi government’s violent response has been met with widespread criticism from the international community. Amnesty International, a renowned human rights organization, spoke out against the crackdown, saying that, “The Iraqi security forces’ escalating use of excessive and deadly force against anti-government protesters must be properly investigated.” According to the U.S. State Department, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the Iraqi Prime Minister, and “urged the Iraqi government to exercise maximum restraint” and to “take immediate steps to address the protesters’ grievances by enacting reforms and tackling corruption.”
In response to the protests, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi released a reform plan on October 4. The reforms focus on subsidies and housing plans for poverty-stricken families, but it does not appear to have satisfied the Iraqis, as the protests continue. “The government reform package is insufficient … After killing more than 100 demonstrators and injuring more than 6,000, I think that these reforms are no longer valuable, so I do not consider that the reforms will work in calming the angry masses,” said Iraqi analyst Jasem Alshemary.